Innovation via the Interwebs: Feasibility of Biodesign Curriculum and Hackathon for Trainee Outreach

Purpose: Biodesign is an emerging topic in undergraduate medical education as well as a core component of interventional radiology (IR). Recent efforts in trainee recruitment have included online outreach to promote interest. This report focuses on the utility of online biodesign education and a “hackathon" competition to raise medical student exposure and interest in a technology-based field.

Materials and Methods: The authors created a biodesign and innovations committee in 2017 focused on exposing undergraduate medical students to the role of biodesign in IR through education and mentorship. A case-based webinar series covered fundamental biodesign principles, from developed needs identification to solution design. The curriculum culminated with an online hackathon competition in 2018 and 2019. Each team, paired with an IR physician mentor, was tasked with applying biodesign principles to develop solutions for clinical prompts identified by surveying IRs across the United States. These prompts also contained educational materials about the pertinent disease they were treating (e.g., end-stage renal disease, pelvic congestion syndrome) and IR’s current role in management. At the end, teams presented their final work via a video conferencing platform to a panel of industry members and attending interventional radiologists.

Results: Eleven teams (three teams in 2018; eight teams in 2019) completed the hackathon. A total of 78 trainees participated over 2 years (18 in 2018; 60 in 2019). Fifty-four percent (42 of 78) identified as preclinical (i.e., first or second year) medical students. Quantitative feedback available for the 2019 hackathon was positive. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = strongly disagree; 10 = strongly agree), participants thought they had learned more about biodesign via the webinars and hackathon (8.3 of 10). The majority of participants would recommend the event to others (8.5 of 10) or participate again in the future (8.5 of 10). Also, the winning teams from 2018 and 2019 obtained provisional patents for their concepts with the ultimate intent of bringing their solutions to market.

Conclusions: An online biodesign curriculum and hackathon is a feasible and reproducible event to generate trainee interest in biodesign and IR.